The Fright Train

The Glow Part 4

Meanwhile, across town...

Charity sat hunched in her desk, fighting to pull the too large parka closer to her skin. She looked ridiculous. The temperature outside was a solid seventy-five degrees. In spite of that, the ice that seemed to coat her skin, fog her breath, and freeze her blood wouldn't stop.

"It has to be the flu," she whispered to herself, barely paying attention to Mrs. Fredricks' lesson. Even as the words tumbled past her lips, she saw them.

The blue eyes. Her mother's eyes, which used to be so green an emerald couldn't even compare, blue as ice, glowing in the early morning darkness of her bedroom.

Charity's mother hadn't walked in four years; hadn't spoken since her second stroke last spring. Charity did the only thing she could before leaving for school. She'd checked the vitals. Blood pressure –fine–if a little high. Heart rate–low–but still normal. Temperature... so low Charity assumed the thermometer must have broken.

The at home nurse said she'd arrive early, no need to worry.

But Charity did. She worried, because whatever illness had fallen over her mother now seemed to completely encase her. She pulled the parka tighter, but it did nothing to stop the neverending cold. The chill wasn't around, but rather inside her.

The bell rang, and a chorus of resumed conversations, screeching desk, and ruffling backpacks mingled in with the sound.

Charity stood and grabbed her own pack. Her legs felt stiff as she forced them to move forward. When she made it to the hall, her friend Laura was waiting.

"Wow!" Laura's eyes were round and honed in on Charity's face. "Did you get contacts?"

All the air within Charity's lungs expelled in a whoosh. Her eyes. The blue eyes. In a rush, she slipped into the door across the hall, and looked into the worn bathroom mirror.

The fluorescent light seemed dim compared to the glow emanating from her irises. She began to grow colder, and her heartbeat slowed yet strengthened. One loud thump echoed into her ears, followed by a pause lengthy enough to make her panic.

Laura came into view behind her and gaped at the reflection. "How do they make them glow like that?"

Charity opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried to speak, and the more she failed, the more her desperation grew. Something was wrong, very wrong.

She turned to Laura, but her movements slower and each one felt like wading through sludge.

"What's wrong?" Laura asked, reaching a hand out only to snatch it away. "Holy! You're freezing!"

Charity barely registered the words. She needed help. She needed something...

Before she knew what she was doing, she gripped Laura's arm.

The girl winced. "Too tight," she said, trying and failing to pull away.

I need, Charity thought. Need. The word repeated itself within her mind, over and over. Need. Need. Need.

Laura screamed, fighting harder now as her instincts picked up the very real danger in front of her.